Devil’s Advocate

Can you run experiments on the past? A groundbreaking book seems to suggest the answer might be yes. 'National Experiments of History", co-authored by celebrated thinker Jared Diamond, attempts to propose a radical new way of studying history and other social sciences. Ceasefire's Omer Ali gives his verdict.

Do you have a worldview? does it have a name? Is it socialism? Anarchism? Conservatism? Well, as Omer Ali argues, in a new 'Devil's Advocate' column, it's not that some ideologies are better than others, but that ideology itself, by definition, is a form of unreason.

Everyone knows that the tea party movement is based on strident sloganeering rather than on any real serious intellectual principles, and everyone, Omer Ali argues, is wrong. In the latest of his Devil's Advocate columns, Ali warns that the Left should dismiss the Tea Party case at its own peril.

In yesterday's 'Domestic Extremist' column, Mikhail goldman launched a vigorous attack on the increasingly ubiquitous dominance of the Tesco "empire". In this week's Devil's Advocate column, Omer Ali offers a thoughtful and solid attempt at counter-argument. For all their charmlessness, he argues, Supermarkets are in fact better for (almost) everyone, including the environment.

Is there a right not to be offended? If so, what about the right to offend? In particular, are some Muslims simply conflating being justifiably criticised with being illegally abused? Omer Ali, Ceasefire's very own Devil's Advocate, ruminates on the matter...

Everyone knows -or at least pays lip-service to- Democracy as an exalted ideal. Is everyone wrong? Is this a concept we have been too lazy, or too blind, to fully examine? what is so special about a system that is aimed at creating a good society yet rarely delivers on that promise? In a controversial piece, the first of his 'Devil's Advocate' columns, Omer Ali examines the impact of democracy as well as its theoretical underpinnings. In the process, he draws on examples from politics and economics and takes aim at a few sacred truths.